Chapter 4:

Note: May I remind people, or inform, I don't know which, that this is a clean story. Free of any real adult material.

Tidus watched the night's scene once more in his minds eye. Somehow Vincent and Harper confused him more than he thought possible. What it was about them that confused him so, he didn't know. Yet, at the same time their relationship confused him, they seemed right for each other.

Last night, when Vincent met Harper at the edge of the firelight, they had walked away and to Vincent's tent. No one had seen them since. Tidus had asked almost everyone if they thought Vincent and Harper should be checked on for...obvious reasons, and, to his astonishment, everyone said no, that they should be left alone.

Thinking that over, he noticed a red spot at the top of a high cliff nearby. A breeze picked up, unfurling a deep red cape and revealing a crouched figure. Tidus glanced back to Vincent's tent, then back to the person. "Hey! Vincent?"

In return he got up and waved an arm which glinted in the setting sun, telling Tidus that it was Vincent. He squatted back down, but not as far, and uncoiled, flinging himself into the air. Tidus worried that he'd come plummeting down, suicide-like, but he didn't. In mid-fall Vincent seemed to slow to a sort of float and came to the ground gently in front of Tidus, who couldn't help but think, Eiry. "How'd you get up there without us seeing you leave your tent?" Tidus asked, really wondering and not just making conversation.

Vincent looked at him for a moment before giving a smile, a small one still...but a smile that was heart-felt. "I have talents," he replied, a happier note sounding in his voice.

"You seem happier," Tidus said as he caught that note. "What was it?"

"..." Vincent closed his eyes, a blissful look still vaguely on his face. "Har..."

He was interrupted as his attention was jerked to his tent. "Ack! Get OFF!" A spinning, dipping, and really thrashing mass of skin, clothing and white hair tumbled from the tent and onto the ground. Harper was clawing at something that, Vincent assumed, was on her or in the legs of the pants he had loaned her. "Ick!" ...He just couldn't see it.

Vincent and Tidus ran to her in a flash, ready for trouble. Vincent got to her first and grabbed her by her waist, not noticing that the tight shirt she'd slept in was rolled up to the bottom of her sternum, to try to shake her out of her hysteria, but it was then that a small lizard like creature slithered up onto her exposed belly. He blinked in surprise as she gasped and started writhing in his grasp when more of the things crawled from the bottom of her pants. "What..." There were two things going through Vincent's mind. One: What are these things? Two: She can go through three months with Kadaj, Loz, and Yazoo, and yet she's afraid of a few lizards? He shook off those thoughts and snatched the creature from her stomach, throwing it into the forest a few yards away. Harper calmed down quickly once it was gone, then began to explain as Auron walked up with an amused look in his eyes.

"Don't look at me like that, You!" Harper didn't know everyone's names, so she called Auron whatever came to mind when she saw him.

"It was rather funny," Auron said, moving bangs from his face. "What was it exactly that scared you so?"

"Lots of multi-colored lizards..." she fixed her shirt and went on. "They were everywhere when I woke, in fact...it was them who woke me." Harper shuddered at the remembered image of opening her eyes and seeing the face of one of the creatures. "I'm not really scared of them. They just surprised me." Then she began untangling her hair, seemingly oblivious to Auron's eyes.

Tidus shifted his weight and asked, "What colors were they?"

"Mmm...Orange, black, and blue-ish. Kinda cute really." Harper looked up from her working with her hair at the two strangers, knowing that there would be many more questions.

Auron blinked in surprise. "Little Ipiria... they must have been babies."

"Ipiria?" Harper and Vincent asked at the same time.

"A type of enemy here in Spira. You were lucky to only have babies. Adults are vicious."

Harper nodded once before directing a glance to Tidus question-filled eyes. "Ask away! I know you want to! ..." she looked to Auron. "And I think you think you need to ask... Did they torture you with questions, Vincent?"

He couldn't keep himself from laughing as he answered, "It wasn't torture..." Vincent resumed his usual seriousness and went on, "They have their reasons for precaution."

"Of course!" Harper chimed having forgotten her rude awakening. "Cloud was lucky! Who knows: I could very well be a villain in Spira. Who knows what's different in this world than in ours, Vincent." She said the last to assure him that it wouldn't be her design if she was the malevolent intruder in this. "So go ahead and ask whatever you want to."

Auron nodded and turned to Tidus, "Go get Lady Yuna." Tidus ran off in to the larger cluster of tents. His gaze turned back to Harper and Vincent went to her side. "How long have you been in Spira, that you know of?"

Harper drew her bottom lip into her mouth and lightly bit on it in thought. "Four days now, that I can think of. Why?"

Auron cracked a knuckle with a thumb absently.

"That's how long I've been here, too," Vincent said, hardly speaking above a whisper.

"Hello," Yuna said as she entered the scene. "You must be Harper." The young summoner walked up to her and bowed in greeting.

Harper, tutored briefly by Vincent who was taught by Wakka, returned the bow and , coming up from it, said, "Vincent talked about you. You must be High Summoner Yuna." Harper spoke the words, but didn't know what they stood for. Vincent had told her that it would all be explained, most likely anyway.

Yuna nodded to her and to Auron as a way to say "resume".

"So you both arrived four days ago," Auron began, "Were you in anyone's company when you arrived?"

Harper flipped her newly finished braid over her right shoulder. "Yes. I was told that I was found in an open space somewhere along the end of the Mi'ihen Highroad, in a low-walled outcropping and was badly sun burnt—"

"But you've no trace of this sunburn," Yuna interjected.

"...Because I was healed. I awoke knowing nothing much about myself. Later pieces were put into place..." she looked sorrowfully at Vincent. His face betrayed no emotion, but she was able to see the emotions he showed only her through his deep violet eyes. "Except for a certain memory. Three months were missing, and I didn't know until last night. Vincent told you about my little waltz with my 'brothers', I'm sure. It was that which was misplaced." Harper hung her head in silence as she skimmed through those memories. She was startled from them by Auron's voice.

"Who was it that did all this finding and healing?" he asked.

"Maester Seymour and his guardians."

Yuna gasped and bowed the prayer. "You were in the presence of a great man."

Harper didn't really hear her though. She was trying to remember whether or not she had told Seymour if she would catch up with him, or return. Finding Vincent Valentine, of all people, in this strange place, in as much of a predicament as she was in, had altered her plans with Seymour. At the same time that she felt obligated to remain with Seymour because of his unquestioning kindness, she knew she couldn't leave Vincent's side. Although he would tell her that she could do whatever she wanted. She wouldn't leave him, she knew as much. Maester Seymour would simply have to understand, and he would, she knew, because he had told her that she didn't have to stay with them.

"Are you going to rejoin him?" Yuna asked, bringing Harper from her thoughts.

"I was just thinking about that..." she looked to Vincent. His unwavering gaze told her what she knew it would: she was free to make her own choices. "No. I won't permanently rejoin him, but I would like to tell him that I'll be ok now. He's done a lot for me."

"Do you know where he will be?" Vincent asked, still using a low tone. Yuna glanced to Auron in worry that something was wrong with her Sir Valentine. Harper knew, though, that it was only the way Vincent was.

Harper nodded. "Mushroom Rock Gates...I think is what he'd said."

"OH!" Yuna exclaimed suddenly, startling Harper and Vincent. "That is where we are headed. You may travel with us until we get there, then decide what your final decision will be. If you wish, you may stay with us, as you know Sir Valentine."

Harper beamed, Vincent thought, at being this easily accepted by a group of almost-complete strangers...again. But at the same time he thought her smile was a bit too heart-felt looking to be real, and that she was about to have a disguised mental breakdown, letting nobody know that it ever occurred.

"Would you like to meet everyone?" Yuna asked, towing Harper with her by the upper arm whether or not she said yes. Auron followed them away, leaving Tidus and Vincent alone again.

Vincent turned to go back to his tent, but was halted by Tidus calling his name. He turned again to face him at an angle. "Yes?" came his low reply.

"I know you said you left when you and Harper were done talking..." Vincent waited patiently for him to go on; he knew the question, but wanted to see whether or not Tidus had the guts to ask it. He did. "Still...Nothing happened that shouldn't have, right?"

Vincent could have played that he didn't know what Tidus was asking, as he was beating around the bush, but decided not to. "No." The teenager visibly sighed. Why was he so concerned? Vincent decided that these were odd people, but no worse than what he had to live with back in Midgar. Perhaps, if there was no way to return home, Spira wouldn't be that horrible a place to stay. "No. Nothing happened. Nothing ever has." Vincent turned again, and was again stopped.

"Nothing happened? Nothing? Not even a kiss?" The kid was persistent, Vincent had to give him that.

"...Maybe a little one."

"Little."

"..." Vincent smiled to himself and corrected: "Maybe a long one."

Note: I had fun writing that ending. R&R please!